


A Conversation Over Tea and Blood

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswin Oswald explains what she can to Madame Vastra. Set post-The Snowmen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Conversation Over Tea and Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/gifts).



> This feels like part of something larger, and I've ideas for more. But getting them hacked out and into text would have taken longer than I've got (not to mention that I should at least do some research into the era I want to write in before I do something atrocious like have Clara and Madame V. exchanging emails)
> 
> Also, while I mention Jenny in this, and ship Jenny Flint/Madame Vastra a great deal, I didn't feel as though this fic merited their listing as a pairing or tag. However, if swash-buckling, non-human-human, lesbian pairings are not your thing, you should probably give this a pass.

"So then I died." Which seemed an absurd thing to say, given that she was most definitely alive, and most definitely taking tea with her companion. Clara lifted her cup again, admiring the delicate china with its gold tracery and blue veins. The tea was excellent, as well, just dark enough to entice the palette, with just a dash of sugar to off-set the creaminess of the milk. In essence, it was wonderful, and she could have closed her eyes to enjoy it forever. 

"Death apparently wasn't the end result, however," observed her companion with head tilted ever so slightly. It was best not to consider what was in _her_ cup. 

Once again, Clara had to focus on the strangeness of Madame Vastra's features. At first, the lizard-like appearance had seemed almost frightening. But the--well, humanity was the incorrect word, of _that_ , Clara was sure--kindness that lurked somewhere in her eyes changed that. First impressions were all well and good, but sometimes, it was a deeper look that shone the spotlight on reality. 

Clara herself was a bundle of contradictions; in her current guise, she could have given the stiffest of marionettes a run for their money. But dig a little deeper, and her accent was all wrong, the words tumbling out in ever-more-incoherent strings. If she allowed them. 

"Apparently not," Clara agreed. Setting her cup down, she considered relaxing back against the wicker of the chair Jenny had placed her in. However, she hadn't practiced with boards and books in order to lose her grip on posture, so she remained straight and supple. "But they believe I'm dead, do they not?"

"Yes." A sound that might have been a sigh issued from Madame Vastra. "I'm afraid explaining away your resurrection would be difficult. And your family has already been informed."

 _That_ made Clara stiffen further, and she frowned, "What, all of them?"

"My dear, I do apologize, but neither I nor Jenny thought it wise to leave them without knowledge of your passing." 

There had probably been a funeral, with her uncle crying in some uncouth fashion and her brother looking bored. Clara could picture it almost as though it was something she'd seen. A shiver went up her spine, and she gasped, "Does this mean I can visit my own grave?"

"If you wish."

It was a strange, terrifying idea. Clara turned it over in her mind, then shook her head. "The past has already drifted away. Perhaps not."

"As well you consider your future--what will you do with yourself?"

Clara was free, in a way she hadn't been before. She no more had a past to obscure, or a life to improve. For it had changed around her in a fashion she hadn't expected. The tea wasn't cold when she reached for it and hastily gulped, trying to use the taste to drown out the ashes in her mouth. What was she to do with her new life? 

Go on, of course. Become herself, but different. "I'll need a name," she said after swallowing. 

"Names are easy, identities the work of a moment. But what are you to _do_?"

As though the question were of the greatest importance. Clara almost glared at Madame Vastra, but it wasn't her fault that Clara had died and been reborn in some fashion, that the lives she had led were impossible to return to. Her family were too superstitious, and the children had already seen one governess raised from the dead. At least she hadn't come back as a statue of ice. She shivered again. 

"What do _you_ do?" Clara asked, turning the question back to the woman who wasn't human. Curiosity hadn't been given full rein before now, but with everything that had gone before and was happening now, Clara felt she had the right. 

"This and that," replied Vastra, her tone light. 

Clara narrowed her eyes, remembering the one-word test she'd been given so many lifetimes ago. "If I were to ask you to put into one word everything that you do, what would that word be?"

It puzzled her why she was so insistant, but then, she hadn't ever returned from the dead before. Perhaps she was simply adjusting to new life (or attempting to ignore the pain of her old one). She should travel, in her new guise--once she had one. Travel, see the world, become someone other than Clara Oswin Oswald. Though she would miss being _Clara_ , she had already gained a new name as Miss Montague. 

Becoming someone else once should make it simpler to become someone new now. Or so she assumed. Then again, she was sitting in a jungle-filled sitting room, drinking tea with a woman who might easily pass for a lizard, were she crouched. The scent of jasmine and exotic things was in the air, and a bird trilled nearby.

Anything was possible. 

Madame Vastra placed her not-exactly-tea-cup on the table and sat back in her chair. When she spoke, it was with amusement. "Adventure."

Yes. Clara smiled and placed her own cup opposite the Madame's. "Then," she said, as she leaned forward, "I should very much like to join you. If that's not too much to ask on such short acquaintance."

"Are you sure you wish to remain in London?"

"Quite sure." She'd grown up here, seen the bad and the good. If there were another place to go, somewhere Madame Vastra wished to be, Clara would surely follow her. But for the moment... "Unless you think my leaving the country is more opportune?"

"In this instance, I believe it would be." With a shift of silk and lace, Madame Vastra gained her feet and strode about the room. Not restlessly, but more as if the ideas spilling through her mind needed the movement to gain semblance. She paused to finger one of the plants, the tips of her claws stroking the leaves lovingly before she glanced back at Clara. "There is something that we have not had time to investigate. Both Jenny and I have been dealing with the rather more difficult matters of the Doctor, several alien incidents, and the London crime lords."

"What sort of something?" Of course, she was meant to ask. But Clara couldn't resist that slight thrill, that moment of _what am I in for?_ without responding to it. Mysterious goings-on had netted her a time machine, a lizard, and a woman with a sword. The good Lord only knew what this would bring. 

"That is the difficulty. Reports are unclear--and while her Majesty has sent people to investigate, I rather doubt their competence in such a matter."

High praise for her own faculties, then. Clara felt she was being put to test again, and considered her answer. "That doesn't particularly explain the nature of the something. Or where it is."

"No. But you'll learn both of those, in time. First, I believe Jenny has plans for your wardrobe."

Clara glanced down at the black wool gown she was wearing, and smiled a little. "I suppose I can't continue to wear what I was buried in."

"People are rather superstitious, I've found," Madame Vastra agreed. Then she smiled slightly, and returned to her chair. "Once my wife has seen to your accoutrements, we will speak again."

"Upon many subjects," promised Clara, fully aware that she was being put off. 

Perhaps this something was more complicated than implied, perhaps Madame Vastra did not trust girls who rose from the dead, or perhaps she was simply looking tired and rather pulled. As Clara stifled a yawn, she decided it was a bit of all three, and allowed Jenny to take her off to another room where she exchanged the heavy wool for something more comfortable.

Less black in life, Clara decided, as she curled up in a chair placed conveniently close to the bed, was something she should look into. Stretching her legs out to rest her bare feet upon the coverlet, she allowed herself to yawn. Just as soon as she had a moment's rest, she promised herself. Then she would return to fencing with Vastra, to learn what was being asked of her, and decide upon a new name. 

She would keep Clara Oswin Oswald as a possibility, but only when traveling in distant climes.


End file.
